[Developing a straight wire bracket placement gauge].
OBJECTIVE: To develop a new straight wire bracket placement gauge, providing measurement instrument for it's accurate position. Methods The gauge was made of 3.0 mm x 6.0 mm stainless steel, after being curved in certain form, made by machine process and cleaned through removing tough and polishing. The bracket placement gauge is divided into three parts: the middle straight stem, the curve head and the measurement head. It was 146 mm long, the angle between straight stem and curve was 145 degrees,the angle between the curve and measurement head was 105 degrees.The measurement head was made of occlusion placement item and slot placement item. The occlusion placement item was 10 mm long and 2 mm thick. The slot placement item was 2 mm long and 0.4 mm thick. This suit of gauge had 7 pieces, the measurement scope was 2.5 mm-5.5 mm which reflected the different vertical distances from occlusion edge to the middle point of slot. RESULTS: This gauge can determine the vertical position of bracket. CONCLUSION: The gauge improve the accuracy with individual straight wire bracket position table.